Still breathing unequally? : Air pollution and post-carbon transition

Walker, Gordon and Booker, Douglas and Young, Paul J. (2024) Still breathing unequally? : Air pollution and post-carbon transition. In: Post-Carbon Inclusion : Transitions Built on Justice. Policy Press, Bristol, pp. 104-119. ISBN 9781529229424

Abstract

Urban areas are concentrated spaces of fossil fuel burning, always contributing in some degree to both the damaging local effects of polluted urban air and the damaging consequences of accelerated global climate change. For this reason, there are clear and realizable synergies in acting across the domains of air quality governance and carbon governance simultaneously. However, inequalities and injustice already exist in both domains, and it remains an open question whether, in transitioning towards a post-carbon condition, such patterns of inequality will remain or diminish. Whether the apparent co-benefits of acting on carbon and urban air pollutants together will be shared in ways that are inclusive of all parts of urban society or skewed towards only some is also uncertain. In this chapter we consider various dimensions of these questions, focusing on how urban air, and those breathing it in, may fare as transitions unfold.